Bruce asked about the downside to upgrading to Yosemite (10.10.x). It is no longer available at the App Store from Apple. It may be available from an aftermarket source, maybe on a USB flash drive. However, Bruce is concerned that an application he is using may not be compatible with El Capitan (10.11). It was recommended that he go tohttp://www.roaringapps.comfor a compatibility list by operating systems since 10.6.8. He has a two year old iMac and it will run El Capitan. It will run on Mid 2007 iMacs and newer. The minimum system requirements can me seen at https://support.apple.com/kb/SP728?locale=en_US.

General question about limited bandwidth. If you use Facebook on an iDevice and are on a limited plan, you should turn “off” the “video load” to save bandwidth.

Geof recommends you turn off your computer once a week. No restart, turn it off and back on again. If things don’t work as expected (ie: freezing cursor, usb devices not working, or apps responding slowly), the first thing you should do is restart the computer. It cures a lot of the issues.

Neil is interested in purchasing some new computers, so he had some questions about the differences between the latest laptops. It was asked about the difference between the models that have solid state drives and rotating hard drives. Rotating hard drives are slower and consume more power, decreasing the computer’s response time and battery life. 128 gb is the standard drive capacity of the base MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and 256 gb for MacBook. The Air is available in an 11” and 13” models, the MacBook Pro Retina in a 13”, and the MacBook in a 12” Model. The MacBook Airs come standard with 4 gb of memory, expandable to 8 gb. The Pro Retina and MacBook come with 8 gb of memory standard, also expandable to 16 gb of memory on the Retina. All the models must be ordered with the memory you want the computer to have, it can not be increased later, as was available in the past. More specifications are at http://www.apple.com/mac/.We were lucky enough to have models of all three available for Neil to look at the meeting. Neil took a hard look at Midge’s MacBook and she allowed him to take it for a quick test drive.

Neil also asked about Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Hartley and Geof gave their impressions and opinions of the applications from their experiences. Geof said while Numbers is pretty good for a simple spreadsheet, but he prefers Excel because of the easy relation ability between workbooks.

Bruce has some recordings that play in iTunes, but will not play in certain MP3 players. It was mentioned that he may be burning MP3’s on his CDs, which will play in some CD players. Other players will play audio CD only. To make sure your CD is burned for audio:

1. Select your playlist from the sidebar in iTunes and highlight it.

2. Using a right click (Control-Click from the keyboard), select Burn Playlist to Disc

3. Then select the Audio CD button

The next meeting is scheduled for March 12, 2016 in Room 224 in the Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital from 10:00 am to 12:00 PM.